10.19.2008

lace literacy, secret socks

About six minutes before it became available through much easier means, I bought the back issue of IK with the Swallowtail Shawl pattern in it. In a moment of weakness a long while ago, I'd gotten a teeny, pretty little ball of Malabrigo lace in Emerald. I've been on a real sock tear, and noticed that I missed having bigger projects on the needles, so without really planning to, I sat down and cast this on.

The version in IK starts with a garter tab, which completely confounded me -- I couldn't conceptualize at all how this was going to work, but was eager to start. I had gotten the pattern for the Shetland Triangle a long time ago, and never cast it on because I couldn't understand how starting at the center neck worked. What did that mean? Huh? Who shot who in the what now?

So this is the part of knitting that is humbling but also completely awesome. You have no idea what it is that you're doing in the grander scheme of meaning, but following the directions step by step gives you what you're supposed to get. You have to just do it to see what it means. By the time I was to the end of the garter tab, I was with it enough to even make a modification and throw in an extra purl row in order to have the right-er-ish-looking side be the right side.

I'm enjoying the shawl at this point -- the emerald is mostly a nice medium green, but every once in a while will veer into an almost light-blue-ish light green or a dark, dark blue green. If the lace pattern weren't enough to keep me interested, that would definitely do it. The rows are feeling long now, and I still have at least three repeats of the first chart to go, so it may end up being a bit of a beast.

These are stockinette socks in Knit Picks Felici Firefighter (or -house or -dog, I can't remember). They are only being blogged now because they were a gift that has been given.

I am still completely in love with Felici -- it's soft, non-splitty, and very entertaining.

Christmas knitting has commenced, so a bunch of stuff will be under the radar for a while. I'll be sure to check in to moan about how I'm still working on the swallowtail every once in a while, though.